Let's Pizza: Vending Machine Mixes Dough, Bakes Freshly Made Pizza

We're used to getting coffee, soda, candy, and chips from a vending machine. Now, according to the New York Times, if Claudio Torghele has his way, Italians and eventually Americans will be able to get a made-while-you-watch, freshly baked pizza from a vending machine.

The machine does not just slip a frozen pizza into a microwave. It actually whips up flour, water, tomato sauce, and fresh ingredients to produce a piping hot pizza in about three minutes.

The customer presses a button to choose one of four varieties—Margherita (plain cheese and tomato sauce), bacon, ham or fresh greens. A plastic container dumps flour into a drum resembling a tiny washing machine; a squirt of water follows, and the drum goes into a spin cycle, forming a blob of dough that is then pressed flat to form a 12-inch disk.

Tomato paste is squirted onto the dough and cheese is added before it is lifted into a small infrared oven. The baked pizza then slips onto a cardboard tray and out into the customer’s waiting hands. Mr. Torghele says the pizza will cost as little $4.50, depending on the variety.

From the looks of this photo we found on Flickr, this pizza is more of a novelty item than an object of desire. It may be made fresh before your eyes, but it certainly looks like a frozen pizza, doesn't it?